graphics optimization tools?

[legendsofthefog]

Not exactly a haunt question, but trying to optimize a gif file to fit the new hauntworld banners. Trying to get my gif down to below 50K, but am struggling to do so. Right now, I can get it down to 91K through photoshop "save for web" application, but don't know what else to do to get it lower. Any suggestions?

Fewer colors? Fewer slides? Even removing slides and eliminating colors, I'm coming out to 91K.

[lonewolfmage]

Graphics

Legends~

much of what youy do as far as graphics will depend on ohow much to want to "compress" it.

Also with it being an "animated" banner.. that will take up space as well..

You COULD try using Paint.net.. and see what happenes there as far as compression .. and yes you CAN do animations witn Paint.net... OR you could try using GIMP as well .. bot are mostly "open source" software... based on a type of Linux software core.

Otherwise.. if you are not watnting to do that... and are "strick" on using Photoshop.. you might try thier "compression" plug ins..

You may very well get or lose some "lossyness" but you might it shouldn't be TOO bad.. . This also depends on what type of quality you are looking for ..

Just glancing on what you have now . (without putting it in my Photo editor).. it looks like you have 8 separate "images" on the banner..

You COULD, if you dont mine losing certain things in the banner, consider getting rid of a few things in the "rotation"..or as you mentioned lower color ammounts..

Just my suggestions. Take of it what you will.

~LoneWolf

[Twin Locusts]

I'm an advanced hack, not a pro with gif files, but... I ran your gif at single frames through CS3 save for web and could only get each frame down to 15.76k without losing image quality. There was no difference in optimized file size from 256 to 96 colors, this was with no dither and no lossy.

Unless there's a plug in for animated gif optimization I'd drop a frame or two. Again, I work stills and video and know little about gifs but I can't keep the perceptual quality you have posted and make it a smaller file than 15.76k per frame.

EDIT- The only other thing I thought of was to see if you did any trimming on the originals before you converted to gif? 8 bits, saved as lower quality jpeg? I like photoshop problem solving, if you want to send me a single slide original in .psd or .jpeg I'd love to mess around with getting it smaller and holding quality. If I come up with a formula you could batch apply it to the rest of the slides. Just throwing it out there.